Color Systems

Newton's color circle

Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727), English mathematician and physicist observed the phenomenon of light refracted by a glass prism and concluded that white light is a mixture of varied color rays.
In 1704 Newton published Opticks.

Goethe's color wheel.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), poet and author of Faust, published Theory of Colours in 1810. As a color theorist, he was more interested in how we perceive color.
For more on his ideas see Goethe's Color Theory.

Here is a color sphere published in an 1810 manuscript by Phillip Otto Runge, a German painter.
The Munsell Color System was a three dimensional model which applied letter and number values to Hue, Value and Saturation (chroma).